A perfectly cleaved fiber end face is an important requirement of the optical fiber industry. There are several techniques employed in cleaving optical fibers. Cleaving an optical fiber refers to creating a mirror flat surface on the face of the optical fiber for efficient light coupling into the fiber. Conventionally, cleaving is performed using a diamond blade to make a small crack on the surface of the optical fiber and then applying tension to the optical fiber to make this crack propagate.
Mechanical cleavers are known in the art and are very economical. A more expensive laser cleaver is also known in the art. As for most processes that require cleaving, the number of cleaves required is very high and there is a need for an economical method which could potentially drive down the cost per cleave. Although mechanical cleavers are more economical, they are limited by the quality of the cleave, i.e., there is the presence of an initial crack in large diameter fibers and the fiber surface is not perfectly flat. Furthermore, the mechanical cleavers cannot shape the fiber endface as desired by the customer, such as fiber end face chamfering. A chamfered optical fiber is useful such as when optical fibers are used in the biomedical industry. In the biomedical industry, optical fibers are often inserted into small capillary tubing which could be a small diameter capillary in a DNA/RNA cassette or a small diameter catheter. These are only some uses of chamfered optical fibers and many other uses are well known and will be apparent to one skilled in the art.
Fiber end face cleaving can also be accomplished with precision using a laser cleaver, but it potentially drives-up the cost per cleave. Also, using a laser cleaver may result in fiber damage due to damage to the coating. Furthermore, in the conventional technology, a single fiber or a bundle of fibers need to be polished (after cleaving) and then chamfered. This polishing leaves behind undesirable end face debris.